In industrial settings, the marking of the exterior of tubular objects, such as pipes, tubes, and conduits to indicate its contents and direction of flow has become increasingly important. Commercial plants utilize literally miles of pipes, tubes, and conduits to carry various fluids. Typically, this vast pipe network is located above the work area near the ceiling supports, to place pipes out of the way of work operations. Time-consuming tracing of overhead pipe paths is often necessary to avoid the inadvertently opening unlabeled, active pipes, and to identify these conduits for maintenance purposes.
There are several known methods of externally marking the pipes, tubes, and conduits in commercial plants. Painting is a commonly used method; however, as the pipes can be more than twenty feet in the air and marked with identifying numbers, colors, text, or other markings, painting has proved to be slow, inefficient, and costly. Further, paint may not always adhere to the various pipe surfaces, such as those contaminated with corrosion or oils. Labels have been utilized as a marking device, such as these disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,246,712 issued to Vander Wall. Those labels utilize self locking straps which are attached around the pipe. In each case, it becomes necessary to utilize a ladder or elevated platform to allow working in proximity to the overhead pipes. This slows the labeling process.
Rolled, semi-rigid, plastic labels have also been used to label pipes, tubes, and conduits. These labels have a coiled natural state, and are chosen for a specific pipe according to the label's coiled diameter. A coiled label of a given diameter corresponds to a pipe of slightly larger diameter. By way of example, rolled, semi-rigid, plastic labels distributed by the W H. Brady Company of Milwaukee, Wis. are manufactured in various sizes as follows:
______________________________________ SIZE PIPE DIAMETER ______________________________________ A 3/4"-1" B 1 3/8"-2 3/8" C 2 1/2"-3 1/4" D 3 3/8"-4 1/2" E 4 5/8"-5 7/8" ______________________________________
To place the label on a pipe, the label must be unrolled, placed around the pipe, and released. The label springs closed as it returns to its natural coiled state. However, the pipe, being of a slightly larger diameter than the label, prevents the label from fully returning to its natural state. This causes the label to frictionally engage the pipe surface, securing the label in place around a pipe at a given location.
These rolled, semi-rigid, plastic labels do not require straps or other fastening devices. However, they are difficult to manually apply on overhead pipes. Each must be unrolled with two hands, held open, and positioned around the pipe at the appropriate position prior to release. This is tedious, and becomes increasingly difficult to accomplish when working on a ladder while labelling overhead pipes.
A need exists accordingly, in the industry for a tool for applying rolled, semi-rigid, plastic labels to tubular objects which avoids the problems associated with manual application of the labels.